1）Facebook日前宣布将与美国商会（the U.S. Chamber of Commerce）和美国全国独立业务联合会（National Federation of Independent Business，简称NFIB）合作，向美国小型企业提供价值1000万美元的Facebook免费广告服务。

zuck-f8(from venturebeat)

该计划的宗旨是向20万家小企业各发放价值50美元的广告积分，向这些公司展示Facebook广告效能，加强他们与Facebook的联系。这项计划将于2012年1月开始生效，在此期间，Facebook、美国商会、NFIB还将开展在线研讨会、提供案例分析和技巧，向这些企业展示如何通过Facebook获取新用户。

据Facebook所称，位于明尼波斯波利斯市的新兴企业CM家Photographics就巧用Facebook平台，仅投入600美元广告费用就实现了4万美元收益。

2）据亚洲支付服务供应商MOL AccessPortal所称，最近重新上线的社交网站Friendster已收获50多万新用户（游戏邦注：Friendster于2009年被MOL Global收购，后者同时还是MOL AccessPortal平台的运营者，Friendster运营团队已从美国迁至亚洲）。Friendster的新定位是为亚洲年轻用户引进更多社交游戏，帮助游戏发行商和开发商挖掘亚洲市场潜力。

new-friendster-logo(from dayaktoday)

Friendster首席执行官Ganesh Kumar Bangah表示，亚洲年轻用户的社交游戏粘性很高，Friendster重新上线时的MAU和DAU都增加了50%，超过90%的新用户来自亚洲地区。该平台目前已有40多款付费游戏和上百款免费游戏和应用，将近半数的用户在过去30天中玩过1至5款游戏。在过去30天中，有30%的用户在Friendster投入时间超过45分钟；10%以上的用户曾购买Friendster虚拟货币。

Friendster现已支持用户通过Facebook Connect登录网站，并在上周添加了简体中文选项，未来还将引进聊天和论坛等游戏功能。

3）据Experian Hitwise最新数据显示，Google+在上周向所有用户开放服务后的访问量增长了1269%，其中美国访问量占1500万次，比一周前增加了110万次。Google+仅用一周时间，就从Hitwise社交网络和论坛排名中的第54位上升至第8名。

market share of visits(from Experian Hitwise)

值注意的是，这里的流量不包括通过手机和其他谷歌工具条访问的用户数据。与其他社交网络相比较，Google+用户主要向“具有影响力的人物”和“早期接受者”倾斜，在向大众开放服务后的访问量开始飙升。据Paul Allen统计，Google+目前用户超过4300万。

4）微软研究院日前发布其首款Facebook游戏《Project Waterloo》，旨在通过这种方式考察人们在社交网络的互动和交流方式。这款回合制模拟战斗游戏要求玩家将100个军队分配到五个地点中，玩法和风格类似于Zynga游戏《Words With Friends》和经典桌游《Battleship》的合体。

Project Waterloo(from games)

玩家可以在每个战场中使用滑块或直接输入数字向好友（或者随机性的Facebook玩家）发起挑战，而好友则可使用自己的100支军队作出战略性的回应，如果好友不在游戏中，系统将向对方发出邀请。据微软研究院声明所显示，该游戏是“Facebook Game Theory Lab”项目的开端，其宗旨是帮助微软研究院探索人们在社交网络中与他人的交流方式，如何让不同个体的意见达成共识，如何根据他人行动作出回应等问题。

尽管微软无意通过该游戏创造收益，但还是使用了“病毒式营销”的字眼说明了其获取新用户的途径。观察者认为，微软之前已表现对社交游戏领域的兴趣，并于最近向开发者开放了Windows Azure服务，这款游戏与Facebook Game Theory Lab有可能是微软试水这个市场的前奏。

5）据《旧金山纪事报》报道，最近有一名政治顾问Michael Hendrix（游戏邦注：Hendrix是共和党候选人、美国国会女议员米歇尔·巴赫曼的参选顾问），表示有意通过Zynga游戏《FarmVille》（目前月活跃用户已降至3700万左右）展开现实生活中的总统竞选活动，让游戏玩家在自己的农场中植入竞选标语，然后“走门串户”地为自己支持的候选人拉票。

farmville(from lydiachanfor125.wordpress.com)

他向媒体表示，年长的妇女是多数社交游戏主力军，在社交游戏中展开竞选活动，或许有助于女候选人赢得这类群体的民意支持。

目前尚不知其他候选人是否也有同样的竞选策略，Hendrix及Zynga公司仍未对此作出回应。

6）据GeekWire报道，从PopCap最近购买的一域名，以及其最近提交的商标注册申请表、创建的一个Facebook页面来看，该公司有可能推出一款博彩类Facebook游戏。

PopCap-casino-style games(from games)

Fusible观察其更新的Facebook页面指出，该游戏名称有可能是“Lucky Gem Casino”，该Facebook页面的信息标签还显示，“……PopCap Casino将成为PopCap的博彩社交游戏之家……请关注我们将推出的新游戏体验……”。在不久前，该公司还推出了一项用户调查，询问玩家最喜欢的博彩游戏类型，“老虎机”类型所得票数最多。

7）社交游戏开发商Zynga和Kabam最近分别向Google+发布《CityVille》和《Global Warfare》。

据AppData数据显示，《CityVille》于2010年底登陆Facebook，目前用户是7200万，DAU为1320万，但从今年6月份（几乎与Zynga新游戏《Empires & Allies》问世同一时间）开始流失用户。《Global Warfare》在今年夏天现身Facebook，与Digital Chocolate准备推出《Army Attack》之时就已亮相，当前MAU为110万，DAU仅为9.4万，从8月份起用户开始下滑（尤其是Kabam开始向Facebook和Google+发布新游戏《Edgeworld》之时）。

Google search(from insidesocialgames)

据观察者所称，谷歌目前正通过其搜索主页推广《CityVille》，之前仅有谷歌内部产品才能享受这种待遇（如上图所示）。

8）Zynga最近与必胜客合作，再度通过多款社交游戏展开公益活动，在9月25日至10月31日期间，向世界饥荒救济组织（World Hunger Relief）募捐。该公司通过RewardVille奖励系统推广此项活动，如果玩家捐献5美元以上的善款，就可以在《FarmVille》、《CityVille》、《Pioneer Trail》或《Empires & Allies》中赢得一件道具。

donation(from games)

如果玩家想获得四款游戏中的四件特殊道具，就得分别在其中捐款，每次金额不低于5美元，即总共需捐献20美元方能如愿。

9）在本周的MAU增长最快Facebook游戏榜单上，《模拟人生社交版》（最近MAU为6034万）仍位居第一，《Pionner Trail》（最近MAU为1307万）居于其次，第三名是《Adventure World》（最近MAU为2164万）。

Top Gainers This Week-Games(from AppData)

该榜单新面孔《Bubble Atlantis》（MAU为116万）和《Dirty Dancing》（MAU为51万）用户也在稳步增长，前者已突破100万MAU大关，已撤出Facebook新晋游戏榜单。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Facebook offers up to $10M in free ads for small businesses

Sean Ludwig

Facebook will give U.S. small business owners up to $10 million in free Facebook advertising, the company announced today, saying it is working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business to provide the ads.

The stated goal of the program is to help “invest, educate, and connect” with small businesses by giving 200,000 companies $50 each in ad credits. The company wants to show businesses how Facebook advertising works and how it can help their businesses if they spend more ad dollars targeting social networkers. Facebook also wants to pull ad spending from the likes of Google, Bing and Yahoo.

The program to give businesses free ad credits starts in January 2012. Until that time, Facebook, NFIB and the U.S. Chamber said they will provide businesses with webinars, tips and case studies that show how to reach new customers using Facebook.

Facebook uses the example of Minneapolis-based CM Photographics as a star small business that used Facebook ads to generate greater revenues. Facebook claims the small company generated about $40,000 in revenue from $600 spent on Facebook ads.（source:venturebeat）

2）Friendster Gains Momentum in Asia

By Sebastian Sujka

MOL AccessPortal Pvt. Ltd, an Asia payment service provider that recently re-launched social network Friendster, reports the platform is actually gaining users.  Friendster has attracted more than half a million new users and now includes over 40  games. The new site is aimed at bringing social games to young Asians and helping games publishers and developers tap the Asian gaming markets. Friendster’s Chief Executive Officer Ganesh Kumar Bangah, said: “Social gaming is rapidly gaining momentum in Asia. The early results attest to the fact that social gaming is proving to be creating deeper engagements and interactions for these young Asian users.” Friendster relaunch has increased Monthly Active Users and Daily Active Users by 50%. More than 90% of the new users are now based in Asia. There are currently over 40 premium games and hundreds of free-to-play games and applications with nearly half of the new users regularly playing between one to five games in the last 30 days. The top 30% of these users spend more than 45 minutes on Friendster during the last 30 days. More than 10% of the users have purchased virtual credits in Friendster to help them better enjoy their games. Bangah further explained that the service continues to be developed and additional features are regularly being added in.

Friendster has already added in Facebook Connect which allows users to login to Friendster using their Facebook account. Just last week the new site allows users to choose Simplified Chinese as their main interface. Popular gaming features such as chat and forums are expected to be introduced in the coming weeks. Friendster’s virtual currency, Friendster Coins, has seen a healthy increase since the site was re-launched, the company reports. Friendster, which was re-launched with a new brand and logo, has also introduced a free wireless Internet services at popular outlets such as Starbucks and Papa Jones across Malaysia. Friendster was acquired by MOL Global in late 2009. MOL Global also operates MOL AccessPortal, an Internet payment provider for social networking sites, virtual worlds and social gaming platforms. As part of the re-launch, Friendster moved its business operations out of the U.S. to Asia. Friendster is leveraging gaming specialists within the MOL team and the company now operates mainly from three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. “We are on the right track to make Friendster a sustainable online business,” Bangah added. “There are endless possibilities for us to extend our service offering to our users. We have major plans to introduce new channels and integrate more online and social activities.”（source:socialgamesobserver）

3）Google Plus Traffic Went Up 1269% Last Week

By Jon Mitchell

New data from Experian Hitwise show a dramatic increase in traffic over the week since the service opened to everyone. Visits to Google Plus increased by 1269% last week. The site received 15 million U.S. visits, up from 1.1 million the week before. Google Plus went from ranking 54th in Hitwise’s Social Networking and Forums category to ranking 8th in just one week.

That’s not all the traffic, either. These stats don’t include mobile users or visits from the ubiquitous black Google toolbar. The data still show that Google Plus is disproportionately comprised of “influencers” and “early adopters” compared to other social networks, but the removal of invitations seems to have jump-started visits to the service. According to Paul Allen’s estimates, which have been on track in the past, Google Plus currently has around 43 million users.（source:readwriteweb）

4）Microsoft Research releases Facebook game for ‘research’

by Joe Osborne

Sure you are, guys–we’re onto you. The Research division at Microsoft has released its first Facebook games, Project Waterloo, in order to find out how people interact and negotiate with one another across social networks. The game is a turn-based combat simulator in which players allocate 100 generic troops across five locations. In a way, Project Waterloo works a lot like Zynga’s Words With Friends.

Of course, we’re referring to the one-on-one, turn-based gameplay, not the words. Players challenge friends with allocations of 100 troops either using a slider or directly entering a number in each location on the battlefield. Said friends can then respond with their own strategic positioning using 100 troops, and if they don’t currently play the game, they will be invited prior to responding.

So, it might help to think of Project Waterloo as a cross between games like Words With Friends and the classic board game Battleship. Players can also start games with random players, regardless of whether they’re Facebook friends. Project Waterloo, according to a post on the Microsoft Research website, is the start of the “Facebook Game Theory Lab.” This will serve as a platform through which Microsoft Research explores concepts of strategic human interaction within “resource allocation and negotiation games.” The team of four researchers wrote:

The goal of the project is to test the behaviour of real people in game theoretic interactions, and especially those that take place in social networks. Some example questions are: how do people negotiate with one another? How does such negotiation take place in social networks? How can we aggregate opinions of individuals to arrive at high quality decisions? In what ways do people reciprocate other people’s actions?

While it doesn’t appear that Project Waterloo will be a source of revenue for Microsoft Research’s parent company, the team does use words like “viral marketing” to explain how it will reach new players. Ultimately, we don’t see a game like this taking off commercially, but it is another step in that direction, as Microsoft has already expressed interest in entering the space. Just recently, the company began to offer support to developers through its Windows Azure service. Perhaps Project Waterloo and the Facebook Game Theory Lab represent Microsoft further testing the waters.（source:games）

5）Campaign Consultant Plans To Add Political Campaigning To FarmVille

by Kyle Orland

A political consultant is reportedly planning to bring real-world presidential campaigning in to the virtual world of Zynga’s FarmVille.

Starting later this year, players of Zynga’s popular FarmVille will be able to place candidate signs on their farms and go “door to door” to campaign for candidates at their neighbors’ virtual homesteads, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle (via the Games.com blog).

The idea for the new type of in-game campaign ad is credited to consultant Michael Hendrix, a campaign consultant working out of Dallas on Republican Michelle Bachmann’s presidential campaign.

It’s currently unclear whether the planned campaign features would be available to other candidates as well. Hendrix and representatives from Zynga were not immediately available for comment.

Hendrix told the Chronicle that the older women that make up the majority of social game players could prove key to winning over the coveted “soccer mom” demographic in the campaign.

Once the most popular game on Facebook with over 87 million monthly players, FarmVille has recently fallen to 37 million monthly players, according to AppData.

[UPDATE: An earlier version of this story cited the San Francisco Chronicle in saying that Hendrix was working with consulting firm Campaign Solutions. That organization has told Gamasutra that Hendrix does not work with them and that they in fact have never heard of him.] （source:gamasutra）

6）Is EA’s PopCap working on casino-style Facebook games? [Rumor]

by Joe Osborne

Is PopCap looking to go toe to toe with Zynga and DoubleDown Interactive’s casino Facebook games? According to GeekWire, a bunch of rather specific domain purchases by the recently-acquired company certainly suggest that’s the case. Well, that and a recent trademark application … and a Facebook page created with that very same trademark. Alright, PopCap has been terrible at keeping this whole thing a secret.

The game in question might be titled “Lucky Gem Casino,” as Fusible points out that the Bejeweled creator recently changed a Facebook page it owns to reflect the new title. The Info tab on the page reads, “Thanks for visiting! PopCap Casino is the future home of some amazing, casino-style social games from PopCap, the worldwide leader in casual gaming.”

With wording like that, it sounds as if Lucky Gem Casino will be a suite of casino games from the developer, much like DoubleDown Casino. And if you take a peak at the page’s Wall, a message can be found there, presumably from the company, that reads, “Keep an eye out to experience casino-style gaming from PopCap Games!” A week later, a poll was posted asking fans about their favorite type of casino games–unsurprisingly, the “Slot Machines” category won by a landslide.（source：games）

7）CityVille, Global Warfare Launch on Google+

By AJ Glasser

Zynga and Kabam each added games to Google+ Games platform this morning in the form of CityVille+ and Global Warfare. As of press time, it appears the core gameplay is identical to what players find on Facebook.

Zynga’s CityVille is still the largest game in the developer’s portfolio at 72 million monthly active users and 13.2 million daily active users, according to our AppData traffic tracking service. The game launched late in 2010 in a global release strategy that yielded Zynga’s largest game launch on Facebook to date. CityVille has been in decline across MAU and DAU since early June — interestingly, right around the time Zynga launched Empires & Allies, which incorporates city-building game mechanics borrowed from CityVille. It might be a bit much to say that CityVille “lost” players to Empires & Allies, but we do observe a shallow dip in Empires & Allies traffic that coincides with the launch of Zynga’s newest live game, Adventure World that supports the idea of faithful Zynga users migrating to new games as they launch without remaining in the old games.

Global Warfare launched on Facebook at the beginning of the summer, right around the time Digital Chocolate was readying Army Attack to take on Empires & Allies. A hardcore-oriented strategy title, the game never saw nearly as much traffic as the two casual strategy titles. Global Warfare currently enjoys 1.1 million MAU and just over 94,000 DAU, and has been in decline across both since August, essentially since developer Kabam launched Edgeworld on both Facebook and Google+.（source:insidesocialgames）

8）Zynga partners with Pizza Hut across CityVille, FarmVille and more

by Brandy Shaul

Zynga isn’t a stranger to charitable donations, so it comes as no surprise that the major developer has launched another charity project across four of its Facebook games this weekend. This promotion comes by way of a partnership with Pizza Hut, in an effort to “share a slice of hope” with the World Hunger Relief campaign.

Specifically, this promotion is available through the company’s RewardVille rewards program, and offers a single prize in FarmVille, CityVille, Pioneer Trail and Empires & Allies. For each donation of $5 US or more, you’ll receive your choice of one of the four items. Here’s a rundown of what’s available:

FarmVille: Food Wagon

CityVille: Nutrition Center

Empires & Allies: Farm

Pioneer Trail: Merino Sheep

To be especially clear, you must contribute at least $5 to the cause to be eligible for a prize, and you’ll only receive a single prize (of your choosing) for each donation. If you play all four of these games and want all four prizes, you’ll need to make five separate donations (for a minimum of $20 in total).

This promotion is set to run from September 25 (now) and October 31, giving you plenty of time to make a few donations if you choose. Here’s the link to the donation site if you’d like to help out.（source:games）

9）EA, Zynga Lead This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU

By AJ Glasser

FarmVille, Adventure World, and Pioneer Trail (the reincarnated FrontierVille) all gain on The Sims Social in this week’s list of fastest-growing games by monthly active users.

Elsewhere on the list, newcomers like Bubble Atlantis and Dirty Dancing are climbing steadily. The former has already broken the 1 million MAU mark, classing it out of this week’s emerging Facebook game rankings.（source:insidesocialgames）